Connecting process-based vegetation model to data from the Biodiversity Exploratories to unravel the mechanisms that connect biodiversity, land-use and ecosystem function

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Carsten Dormann
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions
• Term: from 2014 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 252167192

The Biodiversity Exploratories have provided empirical evidence for the influence of diversity and land use on ecosystem functions. The mechanisms that lead to this influence, however, are in many cases still not entirely clear. This poses not only a challenge to scientific curiosity, but also limits our ability to extrapolate ecosystem reactions towards environmental conditions that are not currently covered by the data from the Biodiversity Exploratories. To address this challenge, we propose to use LPJ-GUESS, a detailed process-based vegetation model, to test mechanisms based on functional diversity within and between species in more detail. We will use state-of-the-art statistical methods to calibrate the model to forest data from all Exploratories, and subsequently compare the support and the estimated strength of different hypothesized mechanisms governing the interaction between diversity, land use and ecosystem functioning. As a sideline of the project, a pilot study will examine a possible extension of this approach to the grassland plots.

• DFG Programme: Infrastructure Priority Programmes
• Subproject of: SPP 1374: Biodiversity Exploratories